the man underground sees
the earth by its roots:
pale and fine-haired,
long shafts of wells
shooting toward the earth’s core,
syringes drawing its fire
up to the sun,
the crumbled bricks of
damp cellars, damp
with the breath of the soil.
graves, mouldering, the sleepers
pale and fine-haired
looking up at the world
through its own shadow
the crumbs caught beneath the
tablecloth, dull pennies
under the rug in a
rich man’s house.
old woman, i’ve seen the blonde
slip-of-a-girl
living beneath your skin.
the one who raised five children
in an unheated london flat
with the man she loved least.
old woman, i see you now, stout
and grey, sitting in a pew
deep in the desert
of your forty years,
you have only twenty more to go.
young man across the way,
breathe easy,
your mind is your own, and if you’ve
lost it, i will hand it back to you.
climb up from the basement and
brave the front door,
the open, soft-tar road.
old man, crying over your dead father
old gem, chipped dusty and glowing
ruby-bright, crying for me:
“girlie, you’re just breaking my heart.”
fly, girl, fly,
but don’t forge too deep,
to the breaking places,
to the crystal mines.
keep yourself eggshell meek,
don’t trade your coral for anything harsher;
buy a soft
winter
coat.
waxing and waning below the earth’s crust,
in the wraith-world where all is
pale and fine-haired.
